


Wings on Heels

by gardnerhill



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: 2016 US Presidential Election, Anti-Donald Trump, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, POV Joan Watson (Elementary), Prompt Fic, Surgery, Warning: Donald Trump, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-04 02:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11545959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Buy Joan Watson a Long Island Iced Tea and she’ll tell you all about it.





	Wings on Heels

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2017 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #18, **Dr. Watson, Meet Dr. Freud.** Have a real-life celebrity of whichever timeline you choose make a cameo. 
> 
> **Further Note:** This story is hinted at in a previous Elementary story, [Heel Turn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4239105)

“Can you _believe_ Athelney picked this place for the conference?” Joan laughed into her cell, her boot heels clicking across the marble floor as she crossed a sea of gilt balustrades.

LaTasha’s voice laughed too. “He must have really loved that show or he got an amazing deal.”

“I envy you being on call tonight. Thank God I live close enough to commute, I’m not spending a moment long–“

A clamor from the ground-floor restaurant across the lobby. A woman’s cry of distress. Clattering silverware. A middle-aged white man grabbing his throat with both hands.

Instantly Joan was in the E.R. She thumbed off the phone and stashed it as she ran.

She triaged the casualty as she ran – _Air blockage or cardiac arrest, Heimlich or CPR – turning purple, he can’t breathe, airway_ – just as the man toppled, his wife screaming.

“I’m a doctor!” Joan shouted and skidded to her knees at the man’s side. Recovery position, big heavy guy, two-finger sweep in the mouth, no object blocking the throat so not choking. He was making squeaky wheezing noises. Allergy, anaphylactic shock, something he ate –

“Does he have an Epi-Pen?” Joan snapped to the woman standing over them, hands on her mouth. “An Epi-Pen!”

“They were fine, they were fine, he liked them,” the woman wailed. “He doesn’t react to clams, it can’t be that. He didn’t bring his pen, said this place was the best!”

No pen, wonderful. “Call 911,” she snapped at the hysterical woman, pointing at her and stopping her tirade. She whirled to another man, a big redhead in an ill-fitting suit who’d just lumbered up to the commotion. “Go get the AED, we may need it–”

“Stop making so much noise!” the man snapped, all New York bluster. “Tone it down or get him out of here!”

“He’s going to DIE if we don’t help him!” Joan snapped back at the man who started back, eyes widening. “Either get the damn AED or get the hell out of the way!”

“How DARE you talk to ME like that!”

Joan whirled around, dismissing him. There were a thousand guys in NYC who thought the sun revolved around them and the city would stop working if they weren’t there. “You. Get the AED,” she ordered a terrified-looking busboy. “ _Va a traer la DEA_.” He nodded and fled.

The guy was gasping, no air at all now. Terror in his eyes. Tracheotomy.

She clapped her hand to her pants pocket and yanked out her Swiss Army Knife. “Get me a straw!” she shouted at a waitress, and snapped open the blade. Pack of alcohol hand-wipes in the purse, out, both hands, the knife blade, the man’s neck.

“Stop doing that!” the shouty man behind her shouted as others screamed or turned away. “You’re attracting attention!”

Adam’s Apple, cricoid cartilage, there.

“I am going to SUE you!”

Incision, reach in, cricothyroid membrane, slit, where the hell was the –

“Straw,” the waitress said like a nurse saying “Scalpel,” slapping the unwrapped plastic tube into Joan’s hand.

“If YOU get BLOOD on IMPORTED TUSCAN MARBLE –!”

Too long. She whipped out the scissors from her Swiss Army knife and snipped the straw in half.

And in.

A loud hissing sound of indrawn breath, from the truncated straw jutting from the man’s throat.

Joan leaned over to blow more air into his lungs once and twice, then sat back.

Whoosh of air, in and out. The panicked look in the man’s face was gone.

“Sir, the ambulance is coming. You’re able to breathe now.”

The busboy – Jose, his name tag said – ran up with the defibrillator. “ _Gracias, Jose,_ ” she said, taking it and setting it down, ready in case it was needed.

The waitress clapped, and the other bystanders took it up. Joan looked up, ready to clear a space around the man, but saw that Shelly had already done so, and even the shouty man in the bad suit was standing away, looking repulsed at the instant surgery she’d just performed.

Then Joan had to practically fight off a sobbing limpet as the wife collapsed on her shoulder. “You’re an angel, an angel from God,” she hiccupped. “How can we ever repay you?”

Joan did not look directly at the man still shouting about her damaging his lobby or assaulting his customers. “Might need a character witness if he sues.”

#

“Good God,” Sherlock said.

Joan nodded. She was three Long Island Iced Teas to the wind by now. “And that’s – hic – the story, Sherl. Lock. Y’know he did sue me for that? Filed it anyway. They dropped it. His lawyers. Explained what it would look like. In little bitty words.”

“And that’s – this same man.”

“Ten years older and deeper in debt.” Joan giggled. “But I was an angel of mercy that day, wings on my heels. Fabulous heels, Sherlock, should have seen those boots. Miss those boots.”

Her partner looked at her steadily. “Watson, I believe you’ve intoxicated yourself enough for one night.”

“Izze still – hic – being called the winner?”

Sherlock looked at the television screen, the red white and blue balloons, the sea of gleeful white male faces screaming like people at a Nuremberg rally. “Mm.” He turned it off.

Her head dropped. “You’re English. Will you take us back if we ask nice?”

“That’s it, Watson, you’re going to bed.” Sherlock hoisted Watson to her feet. “This country is going to need all the angry people it can get tomorrow, but you have to sleep. And imbibing a quart of water first will stave off a hangover.”

“You’re an angel,” Joan slurred.


End file.
